Ontario should make literacy and numeracy a priority, not "diversity"

The Fraser Institute released its 2015 findings of a study that gives both elementary and secondary schools a Report Card. The results show that of all high schools in the province 15.6% of those in the GTA had a better score than the previous year. In the rest of the province, only 6% of the schools showed improvement. Also, in the GTA 9.7% of the schools have declining scores and in the rest of the province 4.3% have lower results. Of the 13 public school school boards, the Toronto District School Board has the lowest scores.

The Report Card is based on the standardized literacy and numeracy tests administered by the Education Quality and Accountability for Grades 9 and 10 for the year 2014. If you have children in the schools, you can visit here to see how the school measures up. Minister Sandals reassures Ontarians that in the English language schools 83% of the students meet provincial standards and the number is 88% in the French language schools. However, what she doesn't say is that the benchmark students are expected to achieve to pass is pretty minimal.

Educators and parents looking at the results will come to the conclusion that improving literacy and numeracy skills should be a priority for the ministry of education. When it comes to "gender equality" the Liberal government should be addressing the inequality in the test scores between boys and girls. Over the last five years the results show that the gap has widened as girls are doing much better than boys on literacy. But the government agenda has been to emphasize the importance of recognizing "gender identity" rather than literacy skills. Much of the information parents have heard for the last six years has been about the great need to implement an Equity policy, "diversity education," Bill 13 and now the new sex "education" curriculum. The government should be making improving the traditional subject based education children's receive a priority instead of pushing the sex curriculum that most parents don't want or have asked for. The Liberal government has the wrong educational plan for this province. The issue of sex education was not an election issue and Ontarians never voted for it.  (more...)

Ontario should make literacy and numeracy a priority, not "diversity"

Better to address the criminal abuse of boys by feminists in our schools: